(A tiny teaser from Bloodborn, sequel to Other.)
The werewolves howl at night, taunting me in a triumphant chorus. Dad doesn’t hear them—he’s passed out drunk on the couch after a day talking to the hospital and the funeral home. I’m not going to any funeral, period.
I go downstairs like a walking statue, unfeeling, unthinking. In the garage, the musty, mousy smell twinges my hypersensitive nose. I can hear a rodent scratching in the wall, even the high squeaks it makes to its mate. I grab my coat, two boxes of rounds, and Dad’s favorite shotgun. I’m more than a match for the werewolves.
It’s my birthday! Guess how ancient I am. Since it’s also Teaser Tuesday, here’s a snippet from Bloodborn:
Outskirts. That’s where I belong. Here, it’s quiet, a slightly moist wind blowing the smell of sagebrush over the tall blonde grass. I hike out into the wilderness, away from the warmth and light of Walla Walla, away to where there’s no one but me and the stars. I figure that if I don’t make it, at least I will die looking at the sky.
I wonder how long it will take people to find my body.
I shove that thought from my mind and start to undress. There goes the shirt Mom bought me, the hand-me-down jeans from Dad, the boxer shorts Chris teased me about. When I’m done peeling away layers of myself, my heart feels empty, and big. I wonder why I’m not afraid, wonder if I will be. This is it. There’s no other reason to keep standing here, naked and alone.
I wasn’t bitten. I was born this way. My dad–my real dad–was a pooka, a shapeshifting spirit from Wales. You probably haven’t heard of them. No, they’re not something cute and cuddly, and please don’t ever call me pookie. A few surviving pookas hide in scraps of British wilderness. I don’t know about any other halfbreeds like me. Maybe they’re also under the bed, as they say. Monsters that haven’t come out yet.
Everybody’s read the stories, but nobody should believe them. Not even that stuff in Paranormal Studies textbooks. They say pookas show up as a dark horse with glowing golden eyes, stalking travelers on murky nights, inviting them on wild rides, throwing them into bogs, over cliffs, trampling them….
Human propaganda against Others. I’ve never done that. They also accuse pookas of destroying crops and breaking down fences. Blame livestock, I say. Okay, so I did try making crop circles with a friend. Once.
